We are glad the government celebrated Library Week, and we don’t doubt that the public officers organising school visits and promoting digital services did their best.
However, it is shameful that the observance is once again overshadowed by the glaring absence of a national library in Road Town.
In case anyone needs yet another reminder, the library’s main branch — which itself was embarrassingly shoddy after longstanding neglect — shut down in early 2016 because of mould and other issues.
Hurricane Irma scuttled a plan to build a new one in Pasea: The facility meant for the project was converted into temporary classrooms after the storm and now serves as the Magistrates’ Court.
The Irma recovery plan rightly included a new national library and archives building that had been promised for years before the storm.
But this project, too, appears to have stalled. Despite periodic lip service from leaders, not so much as a design has been presented to the public.
In other words, the national library has become one more Irma recovery project that has fallen by the wayside while successive governments failed to source adequate funding.
The current administration recently managed to secure a $100 million loan, but this money is too little, too late: Not surprisingly, it is earmarked mostly for urgent infrastructure remediation needed to facilitate basic services such as roads, water, sewerage and the like.
The public, then, has no indication of when funding may be allocated for a new library.
In the meantime, other branches across the territory have struggled as well. The East End branch, for instance, was closed for six months in 2023 and 2024 while it moved to a new location.
In its absence, Tortola had no public library — or even a bookmobile. This situation is embarrassing.
Irma was a devastating blow, as was the Covid-19 pandemic that followed on its heels. But the territory must find a way to prioritise knowledge, education and culture alongside basic infrastructure needs.
A new library would be a good place to start.
